DigitalGlobe and GeoEye have combined

Two leading providers of earth observation and geospatial analysis, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, have finalized their combination. Since their announcement about intention to merge last year, the amalgamation has finally came through with approval of Department of Justice and the shareholders. The cash and stock deal was worth about $453 million. The company will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under DigitalGlobe’s symbol of DGI, and the company said its market cap is $2.1 billion.

The new company will be headquartered in Colorado. DigitalGlobe’s Longmont facility employs more than 750 people, according to the Longmont Area Economic Council. About 200 people work for GeoEye in Thornton, which is the primary operations center for GeoEye’s IKONOS satellite and the secondary operations center for its GeoEye-1.

DigitalGlobe’s satellites include WorldView-1 and -2, both built by Ball Aerospace, and QuickBird.

WorldView-3 and GeoEye-2 are both under construction. Tarr, DigitalGlobe’s president and CEO, said that the building of both satellites will be completed but only one will be launched. The other will be used as a spare and deployed just in case the ones already in orbit need to be replaced due to malfuction or demand for product exceed the capacity of the other satellites.

Creative merge of DigitalGlobe and GeoEye logos

What does this mean for the customers ?

This transaction will result in greater opportunities for the customer. By bringing together the imagery collection, processing and analytic capabilities of both companies, the combined company will be better able to serve your evolving needs. Customer will now have the opportunity to leverage the capacity of following robust constellation of sensors:

WorldView-2 (8 -band, 50cm)

GeoEye-1 (4-band, 50cm)

WorldView-1 (Panchroamtic, 50cm)

QuickBird (4-band, 60cm)

Ikonos (4-band, 1.0m)

GeoEye-2 and WorldView-3 are both currently under construction. Construction  will go on as planned, but DigitalGlobe will delay the launch of one. Pending input from the NGA and other customers, it expects to launch the first of the two in 2013 or 2014. It will preserve the other satellite as a ground spare until it is required as a replacement for WorldView-1.

Another massive advantage of DigitalGlobe and GeoEye merger is the gigantic archive of remote sensing data that both companies have accumulated over the years. This will be a boon to customer wanting to to change detection studies or environmental impact assessments over the years, and many more applications.

Is there a change in pricing ?

As of now there is no change in pricing. Customers can order data at pre-existing prices.